Gacha Harem System

It was the next day.

The four of them were gathered around a table on the ground floor of the inn, their empty plates pushed to the center.

Breakfast had been simple, and the room around them was filled with the low noise of other Climbers eating, planning, or nursing their morning drinks.

Lukas leaned back in his chair, letting his eyes wander over the room again.

The amount of crystal in the construction still surprised him.

The support beams, the counters, the stair railings, even sections of the floor, all of it was crystal, cut and fitted like ordinary stone.

He understood why. Every other material had to be carted in through those tunnels, and transport costs would drive prices up fast.

Crystal was simply what the ground was made of here. Still, seeing an entire building assembled from the stuff took getting used to.

The rooms upstairs, at least, had been lined with dark stone.

Without it, every wall would have reflected everything, light, movement, and silhouettes. There would’ve been no privacy at all. Someone had thought that through.

Karrakas set down the map he’d been studying and looked around the table.

"So. Are we ready?"

Akira reached over and picked up the map, spreading it flat in front of her.

"Before anything else," she said, running her eyes across it, "we need updated versions of these. We don’t know this terrain."

"The packet map gives us the basics, but tunnels shift all the time in places like this. Routes get cleared, and routes get abandoned. If our information is old, we’re walking into the unknown while thinking we know it."

"Agreed," Melody said. "Out of date maps are worse than no maps. At least with no map, you’re careful."

"You won’t get an argument from me," Karrakas said. "But there’s a limit. Updated maps cost money, and the cave network is enormous. We can’t buy current maps for everywhere."

He tapped the table. "So we need to narrow it down. Pick one section to explore, buy the freshest map for that section only, and learn it properly before moving on."

The table went quiet for a moment as they all looked at the map.

Lukas leaned forward. He studied the layout, his eyes tracking the web of routes spreading out from Fort One in every direction.

Then he reached out and put his finger on a spot.

"Here."

The others leaned in.

"Since we’re choosing blind anyway, we might as well choose smart," he said. "The information packet listed the beasts around this section as E-rank. That’s our rank."

"We’ll use this chance to learn the terrain, how the crystal beasts fight, and what our new weapons can do." He looked up at them. "There’s no point in starting from the deep end and finding out the hard way that something two ranks above us blends into the walls."

Karrakas nodded slowly, a small approving smile on his face.

"Sensible," he said. "Then that’s what we’ll do."

They stood, chairs scraping against the crystal floor, and headed out of the inn.

"I already found the Le Fay pavilion," Lukas said, angling them left down the street. "I spotted it yesterday while we were settling in. This way."

He led, and the others fell in step beside him.

As they walked, Lukas let his eyes move over the town. The contrast with Azure Town was hard to miss.

The streets were the same crystal, but that was where the resemblance ended.

Nobody here had cut the material for beauty. Buildings rose in blunt, practical shapes, with the walls left rough where rough was good enough, and corners uneven where evenness didn’t matter.

Where Azure Town’s rooftops had rolled like waves, Fort One’s roofline looked like a row of crates.

Signs were painted directly onto walls, and repairs showed as mismatched patches of newer crystal slotted against old.

A gutter along one street had been carved as an afterthought, angling sharply around a building that had clearly been there first.

It wasn’t ugly, exactly. It was honest, with everything existing because someone needed it to.

"Not much for sightseeing, is it," Melody said, following his gaze.

"It’s not exactly trying to be seen, is it?" Lukas said.

Before long, the pavilion came into view.

It was the same design the Le Fay branches favored everywhere.

It was squat and huge, and spread wide across its plot instead of climbing upwards.

They entered. The front hall was busy, with Climbers moving between counters, but Lukas led them past the public sections towards the back, where a reinforced door waited beside a keypad.

One by one, they pressed their IDs to it. The light blinked green four times.

The door opened onto a smaller entrance hall, with fewer people and better furniture.

An attendant approached within moments, a young man with the bearing all pavilion staff seemed to share.

"Good morning. How can I help you today?"

"We need the current information packet for a cave section," Lukas said. He unfolded their map and indicated the area. "This one."

The attendant leaned in, reading the designation printed along the section’s edge.

"A1729," he said. "Of course. We have updated materials for that section. Maps refreshed within the last cycle, with beast activity reports, and route conditions."

He straightened. "Will that be all?"

"That’s all."

"Then if you’ll follow me, I’ll have everything brought to you."

He led them down a short corridor to a small room, a table at its center ringed by chairs, and gestured them inside.

"Please, make yourselves comfortable. Just a few minutes."

He closed the door softly behind him.

They pulled out chairs and settled in to wait.

They’d been sitting for a minute or two when Karrakas drummed his fingers on the table.

"There’s something I’ve been curious about," he said. "Can I ask?"

Lukas glanced at him. "Ask."

Karrakas leaned back in his chair, studying the three of them with an open expression.

"How did the three of you meet?"

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